Everybody knows that if you want to release some bad news, or anything else you want to fly below the radar of the news cycle, you release it quietly on a Friday evening.

On Friday, Amazon, in a move of potential ant-trust violating proportions, removed every title published by Macmillan (including imprints like FSG and Henry Holt). Kindle editions vanished from the site and according to MobyLives, Amazon even went so far as to remove Macmillan titles from customers wish lists (I haven’t seen any other reports mention this, so I’m taking this with a big grain of salt).

But, as Amazon should have realized last Easter, when it removed the sales rankings from gay and lesbian titles, the Internet never sleeps.

On Saturday, Macmillan John Sargent released a public letter explaining the cause of the dispute. Macmillan wants to make their ebook titles available via an agency plan, which would raise the price of ebooks (and Kindle editions) marginally. Amazon disagreed, and pulled the plug on Macmillan’s titles.

On Sunday evening, Amazon relented and will agree to Macmillan’s agency plan pricing. Methinks that publishers’ agreements with a  certain computer company in Cupertino may have something to do with this.

One thing that struck me as odd was Amazon’s letter (buried in their Kindle Community page) stated that Macmillan had a monopoly on the titles they publish. Well, duh, all publishers have a monopoly on their titles, just as Amazon has a monopoly on Kindles.

On Monday morning, it’s business as usual, and it might seem like nothing ever happened. But, this is really just beginning. As people divide themselves into pro-Amazon, pro-Apple and pro-publisher camps, things are going to get very interesting indeed.